4- PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, 



anatomy and demonstrator ; which being offered me, I accepted, 

 and by so doing a second important aberration from purposed 

 intentions was committed; but enthusiastically attached to ani- 

 mals as I was, as well as to natural history and comparative 

 anatomy, it was little to be wondered at, if a young man should 

 embrace a situation where his duties and his inclinations so well 

 accorded. It may also readily be supposed, that the time thus 

 passed would tend to divert my attention from my legitimate 

 profession of human medicine ; and although, after I left the 

 Veterinary College, I resumed it for a twelvemonth in Sussex, 

 yet I was again influenced, by strong temptations held out, to 

 enter on a course of public teaching of the veterinary art ; and 

 also to engage in the practice of it at Lewes, where I met with 

 much notice and encouragement. An improvident management 

 of my resources, however, forced me from hence ; and I once 

 more resumed human surgery in a regiment of militia, with 

 which I remained, until, at the recommendation of the late General 

 Gwynne, always a kind and zealous friend to me, I was appointed 

 to a surgeoncy in one of the troops of horse artillery, then stationed 

 at Woolwich, with which I remained nearly three years, extend- 

 ing my knowledge of human medicine by witnessing the judicious 

 management of the Woolwich Artillery Hospital, under the 

 direction of the late Dr. Rollo ; and as though the practice of 

 brute medicine was ever to unite itself with whatever other pur- 

 suits I might be engaged in, I was requested to add to my 

 duties the inspection of the extraordinary cases which might 

 occur among the invalid horses belonging to the establishment. 

 As may be supposed, my time spent here was neither idly, 

 unpleasantly, nor unprofitably employed ; but my relations be- 

 coming urgent with me to leave the army, and wholly con- 

 fine myself to human medical practice near them, I left the 

 Artillery, and made my debut as a surgeon in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Queen Square, London. Even here, however, the 

 latent spark, which had smouldered but was not extinguished, 

 again shewed itself by the employment of the hours that my 



